Blue Beetle
by Violet-Pears
Summary: The world is ending, and a new generation of vigilante's are rising up to play. Either someone has to save the world, or someone has to avenge it./ Roy ran a hand through his hair. "So what? You two morons decided to go collect this on the word of Hal Fucking Jordan and a reluctant Bruce Bitter Wayne? On your own?"
1. Chapter 1

The blood froze in his veins. Fingers trembled around the binoculars in his hands. Defeat had made it home in his chest long ago; it didn't stop him from trying. There were people he cared about getting hut – being killed. As long as he had someone to save, he would stand fighting.

And if he lost them all; he would use each and every breath he had to avenge them.

"Dude." Fingers dug into his shoulder. "What do we do?"

It was safe to say that they were surrounded. Their chances of getting away without being captured or killed was next to _zero_. Well – his chances of getting away without being captured or killed was next to zero, he was more than certain Wally was capable of getting to safety in the blink of an eye.

" _Not gonna happen_." The older boy hissed, as if he had read Dick's mind.

The aliens had them surrounded, faces blank as they held their staffs pointed at the two boys. Dick had seen what happened to those in his position. Seen what happened to civilians and vigilante's alike. The aliens went easier on the civilians. But vigilantes were a threat to the 'New World Order' and broke any and all laws they put in place. It wasn't often that vigilante's lived through such encounters.

" _Robin and Kid Flash, you will get down onto your knees and put your hands behind your heads._ "

"We surrender." He replied to Wally's earlier question.

It was easier to surrender then and escape later, than it would be to fight and die. The world needed them.

As he slowly lowered to his knees, an arrow whizzed passed his head. The arrow hit the ground and smoke began emerging, filling the air and slowly blocking everything from sight. Seconds later a rumble trembled through the ground – the aftershock of something crashing into the ground. A hand wrapped around his wrist, pulling him up.

"Hop on."

Wally had placed Dick's hand on his shoulder, the younger boy resisted the urge to let out a sigh before hopping up onto his friends back. With his legs and arms wrapped securely around his friend, the older boy took off. Racing out of the smoke, stumbling slightly as he crashed into a number of the aliens. He never lost his footing though; and Dick held on for dear life as his friend found them a path out.

He trusted Wally with his life. They had been friends for years; met through their father figures long before they realised who their father figures were. They had grown up idolising the men that turned out to be those raising them. Men who had fought tooth and nail to protect as much of the world as they could.

Not that it had been enough. It had never been enough. Most of the world had fallen. Few cities were left standing against the aliens that were ravaging their country. At the tender age of nine, Dick had joined his father in his crusade to protect the world from the evil that had taken over. Wally joined his Uncle Barry six months after that. Fighting a fight that children should never be involved in.

They did it anyway. They had the ability to stand up and fight, so that's what they did.

"Are you two _trying_ to get yourselves _killed_?"

He had been expecting Roy to yell at them, not Conner. Baby blue eyes darkening with rage, fists clenched by his side.

Technically, Conner was barely even a year old. They had found him in an underground lab – abandoned after the fall of Luthor – cryogenically frozen. Once they had woken up they had discovered that he was the clone of Clark Kent – a Kryptonian who had been sent to Earth as the last of his species. Conner was angry and frustrated; pushed down by the pressure of the legacy that he never asked for. The boy didn't have much of a habit of talking to them, more often than not simply grunting out one worded responses.

He hadn't actually believed that Conner really cared about anything, far less them.

Apparently he was wrong.

"No." Wally snapped as Dick landed on the ground behind him. "We were – _once again_ – doing the damn Defenders job _for them_."

Green eyes landed on him, and he looked up to meet them. Nodding once he opened the pouch in his utility belt and pulled out what they had found.

"Is that-" Roy had appeared behind Conner; the skin around his mask stretched, meaning his eyes had widened.

Dick placed it back in the pouch. "Earth's Scarab. Dan Garrett used it before _they_ arrived. Ted Kord's files say that it was 'off-mode'. It has _no_ connection to _them_ other than the fact _they_ created it."

"Use their own technology against them?" Conner raised an eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest. "Wonder whose idea that was." He muttered under his breath.

"Hal's." Wally replied, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes ever so slightly. "Bruce reluctantly agreed."

"He's still bitter that he and Hal agree on something." Dick replied with a small smile.

Roy ran a hand through his hair. "So what? You two morons decided to go collect this on the word of Hal Fucking Jordan and a reluctant Bruce Bitter Wayne? On your _own_?"

Shrugging, an _almost_ smug smile tugged at Dicks lips. "We weren't alone though. You two are here. Thanks for saving our asses, by the way. Kid Idiot was refusing to leave without me."

A green glare was aimed at him, but he pointedly ignored it. Both Roy and Conner fixed their glares on both himself and Wally.

"You can't constantly expect us to save your asses." Roy hissed.

"You're right." Wally sighed. "When you're not around we have to hope that our little shadow is close by."

"We don't even know if we can trust that damn shadow." Roy hissed.

With a laugh Dick raised an eyebrow. "Never attacked us. Never actually spoken to us. Only appears when we need help – kicks alien ass, then disappears. Trustworthy enough for me."

" _You_ find someone – or something – that has never actually interacted with you, trustworthy." Roy was all but actually gaping at him.

"I've interacted with them. _And_ -" A sly grin spread across his face. "Who said they haven't interacted with me. They're psychic you know, and very handed at gathering information the Defenders can't get."

Roy actually did gape, while Wally was looking at him as if he had grown a second head.

"M'Gann's your source?" Conner sounded incredulous, and Dick's own jaw threatened to drop.

"M'Gann?" Wally questioned, his voice slightly higher than usual.

Conner gave a shrug. "Or Miss M. Whatever you wanna call her. She was the one who rescued me from Green Beetle. Before she ran off I managed to thank her, we spoke for a little while before she disappeared. Dick's right though; she's trustworthy. Just, she's scared that if she introduced herself to us, that we'd shun her because she's a Martian – J'onn's niece actually."

A mix of guilt and pity built up in Dick's stomach. Someone was scared that they would be shunned because they were _alien_. Her specification of Martian didn't matter; it was obvious her fear stemmed from the fact that she was an alien on a planet already being invaded and conquered. Yet in all the time that she had appeared in Dick's life all she had done was help. Gather information that Dick had asked for – only if it was possible for her to acquire – and give him written reports on her findings. Their lives had been made far better because of her risking hers for complete strangers.

She could have been one of _them_ and he would have welcomed her with open arms.

"J'onn is a member of the Defenders. Why-"

"He arrived before _they_ did." A soft, feminine voice came from his left. She was stood in the shadow of the tree's, her left hand wrapped around her upper right arm. Gingery-red hair flowed out from under her hood. Like the rest of them she was dressed predominantly in black, a large red 'X' printed across the top half of her suit. "I thought that maybe, because I had arrived after _they_ had that I would be considered just another outsider trying to force myself into this world-"

"Uh- M'Gann, is it?" Dick looked at where he suspected her eyes were, and she gave a small nod. "Your Uncle is trying to help _defend_ our planet from these outsiders. He's from the planet right next to ours – we're like next-door neighbours. And I assume you're doing the same thing. You're here, on a planet that _isn't_ yours, helping _us_ fight the beings that are _trying_ to take it from us. You're risking your _life_ trying to help us. You _fought_ a Martian that had joined them, to _protect_ one of _us_. You've helped us more times than I can count, and you've risked your life at my request gaining _nothing_ in return. You're _not_ an outsider. You _are_ one of us."

And he meant each and every word of it. Over the past year and a half that the s _hadow_ had been slipping in and out of his and Wally's lives, Dick had lost count at how much he owed her. Despite having never seen her face, he trusted her as much as he trusted Conner and Roy. _Maybe_ even as much as he trusted Wally.

" _Oh_." It was small and soft, and he realised that maybe she had been listening into his thoughts.

"We need to get out of here." Conner hissed.

One of the _many_ upsides to having a literal _superboy_ around was that he could hear anything that got too close to them.

"We could take my ship." With a glance at Roy, she takes a step forward. "She's kept in camouflage mode. We _should_ be able to get to safety without being found, or caught."

"Okay."

He wasn't their leader; they were group of rogue, reckless, leaderless teenagers. But he was in charge of himself; he trusted M'Gann, and whoever he trusted, Wally trusted too. Whatever he did, Wally was never far behind. If Wally followed him, Roy would never be too far behind. If Roy followed them, Conner sure as hell wasn't being left behind. Dick suspected that Conner worried about them more than he let on.

Not looking back, he squared his shoulders. They had a world to save, and a warrior to find.

* * *

With a gasp of air, a spasm ran down his spine. A cool, clammy hand clasped his shoulder – an anchor in a cold, unrelenting world.

"Dude, it's going to be alright _._ " The lie slid off the younger boys tongue with ease.

The sky was grey, as was the ash the fell from it. The air was as thick as it was hot; breathing felt more like choking and had the situation not been dire, he would have been impressed that he had survived so long. He would have been even more impressed that his fellow escapee-companion-friend? had survived just as long.

He didn't know what they did to meta's, but they never seemed to live long.

"Gar, I appreciate the sentiment, but please stop saying that bullshit."

"Someone has to be the optimist, dude."

Looking over to the green boy, he felt his chest constrict. They were pressed tightly against the back wall of a cave. Hiding from the creatures who wanted to do horrific, unspeakable things to them; who wanted to tear them apart and find out what made them tick.

Gar had been their prisoner longer than he had. Separated from his adoptive parents; _'I don't know what's happened to Steve and Rita, I just hope that if they're dead, it was quick_.' A meta who had the ability to shape-shift into other animals. Underneath his over the top grins, laughter and jokes was a pretty smart guy. After all, it wasn't every day that someone successfully executed an escape from one of the ships.

Part of him hoped they could make it north. Some of the Northern States had yet to fall. Delaware, New Jersey, New York were safe. Or at least relatively safer than anywhere else in the world. The Defenders had the the three states and bordering cities protected. There were rumours of walls being built – a hold fast against the enemy.

"Do you think we can make it?" His voice was hoarse, fear rattling his entire body.

A toothy grin lit up the darkness. "I know we're going to make it, Jaime."

* * *

 **At the moment this is just a little one-shot, I have a full fic planned out, we'll just have to see what happens.**


	2. Chapter 2

It had been _months_. A part of him had started to suspect that the ache in his bones was permanent. The pain that came with breathing had faded to the point he barely noticed it anymore. What he still wasn't used to was the tingling pain that came with the ash burning his flesh. The pain of the world burning around him was still a pain that stung every time.

It had been months and finally, he was beginning to feel impressed.

Months without recapture. He and Gar had made their way from town to town. Through villages and slipping by cities. Scavenging what they could, when they could. Gar had taken to wearing gloves and over-sized hoodies in an attempt to hide the unnatural colour of his skin – yet Jaime couldn't imagine him looking anyway else. Sometimes, the younger boy would turn himself into a mouse and hide in Jaime's own hood; that was only ever during the occasions that there was enemies nearby. One lanky teenager was easier to slip by unnoticed than two.

Maybe one day he would get used to the fact Gar could change into other animals at will. Seeing an angry green tiger was still something he was trying to wrap his head around, and it had been at least a month since _that_ incident.

His blood froze. The loud, insect like chatter sent cold chills down his spine. Gar stiffened next to him, fists clutching the straps of his rucksack. The two of them exchanged a look before slowly continuing forward. They were in the shadows of a semi-collapsed building, hidden from the two armoured aliens across the street.

A boulder flew towards the creatures, a strong voice crying out "No means _NO_!"

Gar paused mid-step, causing Jaime to stumble into him. Green eyes focused on the scene playing out before them. Another boulder, and then what looked to be half a splintered door. In a flash a flurry of gold and red slammed into the two aliens, knocking them to the ground.

Gar slipped out from the shadows, determination set in his stance and Jaime couldn't understand where the boy got it from. One second he was all jokes and smiles, the next he looked ten years older and as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

"Nice aim."

Jaime followed behind his friend, worry cluttering his chest. If they were walking into a trap he would kill the younger boy before the Reach had the chance.

A moment later, the flurry that had attacked the two aliens landed in front of them – literally landed, floating down from where she had been hovering in the air. Jaime's breath caught in his throat. A halo of golden blonde hair surrounded her tan face; wide blue eyes took them in curiously. She wore calf high books and tight, metallic red trousers with a matching crop top. There was a strange golden 'W' like symbol across the top; a symbol he was certain he had seen before somewhere. A pair of metal cuffs looked to be almost attached to her arms.

"Thanks." Her voice sounded weaker than it had earlier, but it was definitely her voice that had been yelling. "I try."

"So you're a meta too?" Gar's head had cocked to the side, taking her in.

The girl nodded, before using her thumbs to gesture to her top. "Yeah, I'm kind of like Wonder Woman, just nowhere near as awesome."

"I dunno." Jaime attempted to smile at her. "You seem pretty awesome to me."

The smile that lit up her face was blinding.

"I'm Cassandra Sandsmark, you can call me Cassie."

"Jaime Reyes." His smile felt a little more relaxed and a little more real.

"Gar Logan."

Jaime resisted the urge to snort out laughter, eyes trained on the younger boy. Though it was only because of the Reach that he knew what Gar was short for, it amused him greatly that his friend never told anyone to 'call me Gar'. Instead, opting to just tell everyone that was his name.

"So you guys are meta's too?" There was still a smile on Cassie's face, it was just smaller than it had been.

"I am." Gar replied quickly, turning to flash a grin at Jaime. "He's just a normie."

"And perfectly happy being so." Jaime retorted, a smile tugging at his own lips.

The dry laugh that slid past Cassie's lips did not sound as if it should be coming from her. "So you should be. Being different is-" Her nose wrinkled slightly as she looked for the right word.

"Hell? A curse? A death sentence? Not as fun as people used to make it out to be?" Gar offered.

"Yeah. All of the above."

Rubbing at the back of his neck, he nodded. "So I've noticed." His eyes darted around, standing out in the open for any period of time had started to make him feel jumpy. "Should we maybe _not_ stick around to see if those guys actually have any friends?"

Gar nodded in agreement. "So it's decided." Eyes glinting as he looked at Jaime. "You're the mom friend. Great. Let's roll."

"Mom friend? What?" He followed after Gar who was almost seemed to be bouncing back to the shadows, Cassie laughed lightly as she followed behind them.

He supposed he was kind of the mom friend; after all, he had spent months trying to make sure Gar was keeping out of trouble. Meta's were wanted more than normal humans were. Though keeping one meta out of trouble was hard enough, if Cassie stuck around he would likely have his work cut out for him. Glancing back at her she grinned.

He supposed he didn't really mind.

* * *

"Well I'm hardly surprised. Even _we_ aren't willing to let it _fuse_ to our spines."

Letting out a sigh, he looked up at Wally. "Yeah, but that's different. We already have our roles."

The older boy flopped down onto a chair, green eyes sceptical. "Are those your words or Bat's?"

He froze, the feeling of Wally's gaze slicing through him. There was a sense of knowing in Wally's eyes, and the air caught in his lungs. Sometimes it would scare him, how well his friend could read him. How well Wally knew each and everything about him.

Shaking his head, he ripped his gaze away to stare at the secure box. "I'm pretty sure you already know the answer to that." Tapping the box, he ran his other hand through his hair. "Maybe you're right. Maybe rather than looking for a willing candidate we should just do this ourselves. I could-"

" _No_."

Falling back into his own chair, he turned his gaze back to Wally. "Seriously? You're going to complain about us not having found someone and then when I-"

" _No_." Wally stood up, marching over to him. "I don't care how unattached to it creators it is. Whoever it fuses to is going to become the number one target of _them_. Sorry Boy Wonder, but you aren't a superhero. You don't get to sacrifice yourself for the greater good." With a sigh, what looked like defeat flickered across Wally's face. "Look, if Bart's telling the truth and he is from the future, then maybe he can help us. I know there's some things we aren't supposed to know – or whatever – but he just saved Uncle Barry's life. Pretty sure that breaks at least five time travelling rules."

"You think he is who he says he is?"

Wally raised an eyebrow and barked out a laugh. "Bart Impulse Allen, tourist from the future? Hell fucking no. I don't buy his happy-as-larry bullshit. Tourist? What kind of fucking time travelling tourist would come _here_? And oh-so-coincidently just happens to land in a time where he's able to help Barry and Hal on a mission and just 'accidentally' save their lives. _Not_ buying it. He's here to change the past, and we're not just going to let him. We're going to help him."

"Do you two have any _real_ hobbies?"

The new voice cut through Dick's chance to respond to Wally. Conner was stood by the door with his arms folded across his chest. An eyebrow was raised and an almost amused expression flickered across his face.

"M'Gann bakes. Roy cooks – which is still weird. Kaldur reads. I fix up cars. Artemis and Zatanna go to Ollie's yoga class. Diana runs a martial arts class. Bruce throws parties. Tim plays video games."

"Dick and I play video games." Wally replied, sounding almost defensive.

A laugh slides out past Conners lips. "While conspiring and talking about missions. Super-hearing, remember?"

In the months since M'Gann had joined them, Conner seemed to have mellowed. If it was up to Dick the two of them would be together already, but it wasn't up to him and so he had to watch as they painfully danced around one another.

"That's not _all_ we do." Dick replied. "We discuss peoples love lives – or lack of. Like, Bruce really needs someone; and not just the kids he adopts. I love him, I really do, but come on. If you have time to adopt a child, you have time for a love life." And really, discussing Bruce in the 'Batcave' is probably never a wise idea, but _hey_ it's not like Dick is likely to live very long anyway.

"We play poker with Roy." Wally cut in. "And sometimes Dick knits jumpers."

Glaring at Wally, his lips twitched. "And scarf's. Wally occasionally reads."

"We have plenty of hobbies. And we talk about what we've heard of from before the invasion. Like carnivals sound fun."

"I've heard about markets. Not like the ones we have now." Conner nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips. "Where people from all over the world have stalls and sell things that are native to their countries. They used to have fairs alongside the markets; it sounds like it was really fun." For a brief moment, he seemed to be in another world and then his face hardened. "Bart was telling the truth. He is from the future." Wally shot up, and Conner held out his hand. "Whatever ridiculous plot you're pulling together, M'Gann and I want in."

Dick looked up at Wally. Bart was a time traveller who wanted to change the past; whatever prompted him to take such drastic action couldn't be good. Helping him change the past was the least they could do to try and make the future a better place.

"Of course." He nodded slowly, an easy smile stretching across his face. "We can't really expect to constantly have our asses saved, if our saviours aren't at least partially involved in our schemes, can we?"

Wally had him hauled out of the room before Conner could even begin to open his mouth.

* * *

It wasn't that the past was great, it just wasn't the complete and total hell that was the future. Of course, he had just – hopefully – made the future a slightly better place. The crash course seemed to stem from Barry Allen and Hal Jordan's deaths. The Defenders fraying at the seams and unable to agree on anything.

How could they expect to defend humanity when they couldn't even defend their own team from themselves?

The chair he was sat on was uncomfortable and stiff. His feet were racing against the wooden floor, and a blue glare was locked onto his face. He didn't really care; he had seen too much in life to be scared of a glare from a man who dressed up as a bat for a living.

Bruce Wayne wasn't actually as terrifying as he had expected. He had grown up hearing tales of the terrifying original Batman. Of allies and enemies alike being scared of the unrelenting, non-meta force that was billionaire Bruce Wayne. Slipping through the darkness like a shadow and never stopping for rest; taking down his enemies one by one until his crusade eventually killed him.

Despite the stiff way he held himself and the hatred in his glare, there was kindness buried in his eyes. The brief twitch of his facial muscles when Barry and Hal had returned had been a momentary relax – he was glad they were safe. People only slipped in their control when they cared. Bruce Wayne was as human as the rest of them; history seemed to have forgotten about that.

"So, you're a tourist?" Bruce sounded too sceptical to even be asking the question.

Trying to relax his shoulders, he feigned an easy grin. "D'oy. I was aiming for the eighties and the machine crashed."

So maybe he was amending his story _slightly_. All he had told them originally was that he was a tourist from the future and his machine had burned out on him. Not all true, but believable enough. A tourist headed for two thousand and fifteen sounded ridiculous, a tourist headed for the eighties – not so much.

"Really?"

Maybe he should have guessed that _the_ Batman wasn't likely to believe him. But it wasn't going to bother him or stall any of his plans.

"Batman-" Tim was looking up at the older man, some kind of hope mixed with desperation on his face. "Can- Can I talk to him? Just a minute?"

The pleading in the boys voice sent guilt flushing straight through him, making him wonder if he should have just told the truth and let the adults yell at him a little. Batman nodded before turning on his heel and walking away. Barry, Hal and Dinah followed after him, leaving Bart in the room with Tim.

"So if I've worked all this out, then that means Robin and Kid Flash have too and they're already plotting something." The desperation and hope faded away from the boys face, and there was something broken left behind. "You saved Barry and Hal for a reason. You're here for a reason, and not just because your machine is completely and totally fried."

"Yeah, Iris said lying to Bat's is next to impossible."

Tim raised an eyebrow. "Your grandmother?"

Bart shook his head, feeling a wave of sadness crash over him. "No, my third cousin."

 _Please don't let her have been wiped from existence._

He was risking everything being in the past. Had he gone any further back in the time stream he would have risked his father and aunts existence. Of course, there was no guaranteeing his own existence at the end of it all – but his existence didn't matter when the fate of the Earth was at stake.

"I'm risking a lot by being here." He said quietly.

"I know." Tim replied, his tone oddly calm. "Robin and KF are going to want to help you. Superboy won't let them do anything without him, I think he secretly wishes he wasn't as socially inept so that he could join in." The raven haired boy gave a shrug. "They won't let me suit up and help, but I want to. I'm older than Dick was when he first suited up and I know how to handle myself. If you want to change something – or multiple things – I want to help."

"Why does your brother always have to beat us to the punch?"

Tim turned to smugly smile at two older teens; Dick dropping off of Wally's back, a frown fixed on his face.

"He's as much Bruce's son as I am." Dick replied to Wally. "And just as damn stubborn."


End file.
